


Ghosts

by RedRowan



Series: La Belle Dame Sans Merci [5]
Category: Daredevil (TV), The Defenders (Marvel TV), The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Female Matt Murdock, Grief/Mourning, Presumed Major Character Death, Punisher Spoilers, Rule 63, The Defenders (Marvel TV) Spoilers, Torture, Vignettes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-27
Updated: 2018-01-19
Packaged: 2019-02-07 10:41:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12839463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedRowan/pseuds/RedRowan
Summary: Frank is haunted by the women he's lost.





	1. Another Wall

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Punisher, everyone! This little fic is more a series of vignettes - I'm not going to be giving a lot of context for them, so it's best to see the whole series before diving into these. Enjoy!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Takes place during Episode 1: 3AM.

_“The second time?” Red said._

_“Basic - wait, no, second time was before basic -“ he said. “Football game, senior year.”_

_“You played football?” she said._

_“Fullback, all four years of high school.”_

_Her hand was on his cheek, her thumb stroking his nose. She played this game, learning his history through the stories he could tell her about breaking it._

_“How very wholesome,” she said._

_“What about you?”_

_“Never played football,” she deadpanned._

Swing the hammer. Start by concentrating the blows on one spot, in the middle, where it’s weakest. Break a small hole through the wall.

Red’s gone, and with her any chance of making this life bearable.

_Maria was holding back tears as she smiled on the other end of the Skype chat._

_“Frank…” She nodded frantically. “We did it, baby.”_

_“What - you mean - you’re…” He gestured up and down._

_“We’re going to have another baby.” And she did start crying, and laughing at the same time, and Frank was smiling so wide his face might break in half._

_“Jesus…” was all he could put into words. He ran his hand over his hair, trying to say something, anything, other than “We’re having a baby!”_

_“You gonna be OK?” he eventually said._

_“I’m fine. I’m better than fine.” She beamed at him, and started talking very fast about how excited Lisa was to be a big sister, how Maria’s mother would help her out, and Frank let it all wash over him because his family was getting bigger._

Swing the hammer. Take out the edges. Widen the hole.

Doesn’t matter if it hurts. Better that way.

_Red was singing in the shower. It didn’t happen often, only when she’d had a good day, or a good night. She didn’t have a great voice, but it made Frank smile to hear her be happy for once._

_“…end up like a dog that’s been beat too much, ’til you spend half your life just covering up.”_

_Frank chuckled and joined in from the bedroom._

_“Born in the USA, I was born in the USA, I was born in the USA, I was born in the USA. Born in the USA.”_

_He could hear her laughing as she turned off the water._

_“Got in a little hometown jam,” she kept singing, “So they put a rifle in my hand - oh, shit.”_

_Frank wasn’t sure why she stopped, but there was an awkward silence before she appeared in the bedroom doorway, wrapped in a towel._

_“Sorry,” she said. “I forgot what the song - wasn’t thinking -“_

_Oh. She thought the song would…do something to him. Remind him._

_“Never apologize for The Boss, Red,” he said._

Swing the hammer. It can’t take out the ghosts, but it can turn concrete into gravel and dust. Let his mind sink into nothingness, where Red and Maria are.

_It was a stupid song. Frank couldn’t remember the last time he was this nervous, his hands were practically shaking. Maria would hate it. She’d laugh at him, and tell him she could never love an idiot._

_She sat on the floor of his living room, bottle of beer in her hand, and she smiled._

_“Come on,” she wheedled._

_He took a deep breath, and started playing. He sang about golden hair in sunlight, and a smile to match. He sang about falling, and how it felt like floating. He sang about knowing love for the first time._

_“You wrote that for me?” she said, when he finished._

_“Yeah.” He put the guitar down. “Sorry. It’s stupid, it’s -“_

_She cut him off by climbing into his lap and kissing him._

_Later, he’d decide that that was the night they conceived Lisa._

Swing the hammer. Let the ghosts come.


	2. A Toast

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Takes place during Episode 8: Cold Steel.

_“When you know, you know.”_

David’s snoring on the mattress where Frank dumped him, and Frank is staring at the last half-inch of liquor in the bottle.

He’d stopped drinking, after the park. Didn’t want distractions, didn’t want to make the pain go away, wanted to turn himself into a weapon. After that, there was Red, and his suspicion that the last thing she needed was a drinking buddy. There were other ways he could make her forget all the shit that piled up around her.

After Red died, it hadn’t mattered anymore.

He empties the bottle into the glass.

_“Do you miss sex?”_

He knows for a fact he’s had sex more recently than David has. David’s been on his own for a year, and Red’s only been gone a few months.

He takes a sip, and tries to remember the last time, but it all blurs together. He hadn’t known it would be the last time, he’d thought he’d come home and she’d be there.

He should have known better.

_“You an ass man?”_ David’s ridiculous drunk voice echoes in his head.

He’d never really say as much. He’d say he had an appreciation, same as anyone who liked women. But then there was Red (there was always Red), in that stupid red suit that looked like it was molded to her.

_“I’m going first,” she said, leaning over the edge of the roof. “Cover my back.”_

_“Ain’t your back I’m looking at,” he said._

_She turned, and she wasn’t helping her case, because she was silhouetted against the light from below, every curve outlined. He couldn’t tell if she was grinning or not, but then she cocked her head, the way he knew meant she was amused._

_“Better cover me if you want to keep that view,” she said. She let her hips sway as she turned away from him, and he fought down the growl in his throat, low and animalistic._

He drinks, and tries to remember what it had felt like. He remembers that she always smelled good, but he can’t quite remember what the smell was. He remembers the way his hand fit over the curve of her ass. The way her skin was soft, even the scars.

_“They feel different?” he said, the tip of his finger brushing over the big scar on her side. Where the Russians had stabbed her, according to her._

_She nodded._

_“Duller,” she said. “Thicker.”_

_He leaned over and kissed the scar._

_“You feel that?” he murmured._

_She raked her fingers through his hair._

_“Always.”_

David lets out a snore like a sawblade. Frank glances over, guilt hitting him all over again about Sarah, and Maria, and how she keeps fading, how he didn’t think of her when Sarah put her arms around him. And how David and Sarah have been apart for a year, but Frank at least had Red, and she made it hurt less, for a little while, before he got the kick in the balls that always comes.

He hasn’t told anyone about Red. Not Curtis, not David. Karen won’t talk about her. 

David snores again, out cold.

“There was a girl,” Frank tells David’s sleeping body. He pinches his nose, where she’d broken it. “After Maria.” David snores, as if it’s a conversation. Frank raises the glass. “Wish you were here,” he says, draining the last of the whisky.

It’s the truth. But wishing won’t bring her back.


	3. Time to Choose

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Takes place during Episode 12: Home. With all the violent content that entails.

“You don’t get to _win_ , Frank,” Billy says, leaning over him. “You got one choice left, and that’s how you’re gonna die.” He keeps talking, same old shit. Frank keeps his eyes on him, but out of the corner of his eye, he sees red.

“Jesus, how many years did you have to put up with this asshole?” Red says in his ear. 

_Not now, Red. In the middle of something._

“Was he always like this?” She steps around Billy, resplendent in her red suit, with her helmet off. Frank almost grins to see her, his guardian devil. “He’s worse with the monologuing than you were, first time we met.” 

_Second time._

She shrugs and grins. “First time we talked. Well, you did most of the talking. Is this actually an interrogation technique? Does he expect you to give everything up just so you don’t have to hear the sound of his voice anymore?”

She keeps it up, all the thoughts he ever had about Billy’s bullshit dropping out of her mouth. He wishes she were really here, so she could say them to Billy’s face.

Except if she were really here, she’d probably just punch Billy’s face in instead.

But even she can’t stop the tears when he asks Billy about the park. He glances over to where she’s been, and she’s gone, leaving him on his own. He wishes he could say goodbye.

He’s more than half-serious when he tells Billy to shoot him. 

When Rawlins walks in, he feels a pair of arms sliding over his shoulders, the familiar brush of her cheek against his as she drapes herself against his back. 

_Thought you left._

“Not yet,” she whispers in his ear. “I need you to keep fighting.” Rawlins hits him, and she laughs. “That’s it?” He’s caught by Rawlins’ other hand. “He’s just going to smack you around?” Rawlins keeps going, and Frank can’t hear a lot in the room, but he can hear her voice, clear as a bell. “I hit you harder than that when you were trying to kill me.” 

_I know, Red, you’re a badass, but this ain’t a fight._

“That’s good,” she says. “You don’t have to worry about what you’re going to do. You just have to keep your head.”

But Rawlins hits him hard, and Maria’s there to welcome him, and he lets himself sink down.

“Wake up!” Red shouts, leaning over him. Then she’s gone, and Rawlins is still raining blows down on him. “Stay with me, Frank,” she says, and he’s not even sure if he can see her or not. But Maria’s fingers intertwined with his, he can feel that, pulling him under.

When he wakes up, Maria’s gone. Red’s gone. The only one there is Billy, who he’s going to kill. Red wouldn’t want that, but she’s not here to object. She doesn’t show up to comment when he sets Micro’s cameras, or when he stabs Rawlins, although he’d like to think she’d be proud of his moves.

He takes her absence as a sign that Maria’s right. He should go home.

“Don’t do this, Frank,” Red says, while Rawlins rants in his face. Frank looks past Rawlins, to the figure in red over his shoulder. “You’ve taken worse than this.” 

_Isn’t that enough, Red?_

“I didn’t save you from the fucking Irish just to have you let this asshole kill you.” 

_Yeah, well, you went and died on me, so back off._

“I died for the city,” she says, and for a moment, she’s standing in Rawlins’ place. “You’ve done what David told you to do, so what are you dying for?”

_Just let me do this one thing so I can die in peace._

“No.”

Typical Red, thinking everyone can walk out of this alive. 

_It was always going to be this way, babe. You knew that._

“I don’t think I did,” she says, sounding disappointed.

She’s right. She always thought he could be better. Even chained to a rooftop with a gun taped to her hand, she’d thought that.

He feels Billy clip the zipties behind him, and Maria is there, asking him to come home.

“Frank!” Red screams, bringing him back.

“Stay with me, Frank,” Rawlins growls.

When Rawlins shoots him full of epinephrine, he thinks Red is leaning over him again.

“Wake up!” she shouts in his face.

Rawlins is advancing on him, and Maria is calling him home, and Red’s lips are against his ear.

“You have to keep fighting,” she begs.

“Let’s go home,” Maria says.

“You’re a dead man,” Rawlins says, “your heart just doesn’t know it yet.”

Maria’s hand falls away.

“I am home,” Frank tells her.

For a moment, before Rawlins tries to stab his eye out, he sees Red smile.

When it’s all over, when he’s lying in a pool of his and Rawlins’ blood, when Billy’s lost everything, and David is kneeling over him, he sees Red over David’s shoulder. She nods.

“Keep fighting,” she says.

_Don’t worry. Goodbye, Red._


	4. Laid to Rest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Takes place after the end of Season 1.

The week after Thanksgiving, Curtis asks the group how they spent the holiday. Did they have a family dinner? Did they spend it on their own? Did it bring back memories, what did it make them think about?

Frank mumbles something about spending it alone, how it was the second one after he lost his family.

Curtis knows the story, so he doesn’t ask Frank to elaborate.

Nobody pries. Frank likes that about Curtis’ group.

But family is a theme for the next few weeks, with Christmas coming up. One of the older guys, a Gulf War vet named Drew, bitches about the Christmas music in the department store where he works. The rest of them laugh, and chime in with the songs they hate, until Jerry says, “Yeah, but my wife loves that Christmas shit. Lights, ugly sweaters, tinsel, hell, she makes me wear a Santa hat. She’d send me pictures of the house all done up when I was over there…” His voice trails off. “So fuck it, I love Christmas now.”

And it turns serious, then, with stories about Christmas traditions. And family.

Erin, the only woman who comes regularly, talks about the epic fight between her and her mother-in-law over who’s in charge in the kitchen.

“I mean, it’s my goddamn house, but every year, she’s gotta be the one in charge,” she says.

“You shoulda met my mother-in-law,” Frank says, surprising himself.

“Yeah?”

“Tiny Italian woman, barely came up to here on me.” Frank puts his hand somewhere around his collarbone. “She’d practically chase me out of the kitchen with a knife. Barely even let my wife help.” He can feel his throat tightening. “Year before last, the, uh, the last one they…” He clears his throat. “I wasn’t home, but my wife told me. Her mom let my daughter into the kitchen. Started teaching her how to make all the Italian stuff. And Lisa was so proud, she could make fresh pasta like her nonna. Said she was gonna make me some when I got home.” He presses his lips together, not wanting to think about what might have been. “It stays with you, all the things you never got to do. I mean, you guys all know that. And Christmas, it’s…I tried to ignore it, last year. You know, just got lost in work and shit.”

He tightens one hand over the thumb of the other, then forces himself to release his grip.

“But there was this girl,” he says. “I’d…known her, for a little while. And she was a pain in my ass a lot of the time, until she wasn’t, she was pretty much the only person I knew would have my back. And she’d lost someone too, I knew that. But she was the first girl after my wife that…” He shrugged. “You know. I made a move on her, on what turned out to be Christmas Eve, and I was a dick to her, after.” He feels the corner of his mouth turn up, a little. “But she took me back, after that. And she made…she made it hurt a little less.”

After the meeting, Frank helps Curtis stack the chairs.

“That girl,” Curtis says neutrally. “You never mentioned her before.”

“It was complicated,” Frank says.

Curtis nods. “You ever want to talk about her, you know, the stuff Pete Castiglione can’t say…”

“Yeah, man, I know.”

They finish stacking the chairs in silence. Frank empties the coffee urn and rinses it out in the kitchen. He brings it back and puts it on the table.

“She was Daredevil,” he says.

Curtis’ eyes widen.

“No shit,” he says evenly.

“Yeah. And she’s dead now.”

Curtis doesn’t say anything to that. Frank knows there’s not much that can be said to that.

Talking about Red becomes a little easier after that. He can tell stories about her, at least. He doesn’t like getting too deep into it, though.

One meeting, Curtis talks about being able to forgive the dead.

“I think a lot of us,” he says, “and I include myself, we’re angry at them for dying. Sometimes we’re angry that they made that call, that they did something stupid, but sometimes, we’re just angry that they’re not here anymore. And it’s easier to be angry, isn’t it? But you can’t hold onto that forever.”

That night, Frank lies in bed and tries to let go of the anger he’s been carrying ever since Midland Circle fell. He doesn’t sleep. He considers knocking on Karen’s door, or David’s, but instead he sits alone in the dark.

_Why’d you do it, Red?_

But there’s no-one there. His mind circles around on itself for hours. She didn’t love him. She chose Elektra over him. She loved the city, she saved the city, she fought the way she always did, with no regard for her own safety.

And as dawn starts streaking the sky, he’s exhausted, and he keeps coming back to one thought: whatever had happened at Midland Circle, she’d never lied to him.

He’s not ready to forgive her yet, but he doesn’t think he’s still angry at her.

Curtis holds a meeting on Christmas Eve. It’s mostly attended by the non-Christian guys, but there are a few others who don’t have families waiting for them. It’s an angrier meeting than usual - Ed rants about being invisible because he’s black and Muslim, then Ron chimes in about being Jewish, and they start yelling at each other over who’s got it worse, and Curtis has to raise his voice to get them to settle down.

When the meeting’s over, Curtis is trying to sound normal as they stack the chairs.

“You gonna be all right tomorrow?” Curtis says.

“Yeah. Got somewhere to go.”

Sarah told David to invite him over for a specifically not-Christmas dinner. He’s still not sure he can face walking into their house, but at least he has the option. Karen told him she’d be on her own, too.

“Good,” Curtis says. He holds out the plastic clamshell of cookies that have been left behind. “You want to take them?”

“Nah, I’m good.” 

He can hear footsteps in the hall, which is unusual. Usually they’re the last ones in the building. Logic would say that it might be one of the guys coming back, but the footsteps are too light.

The list of women who might be looking for him is pretty short. If it were Karen, he’d hear her heels. Madani? Sarah?

Some pissed-off ex-Anvil merc?

He takes up position next to the door, so he can grab whoever it is if she’s hostile. He’s already failed Curtis too many times.

The footsteps stop just before the door, and he tenses. Then two steps, and he sees her.

Mattie fucking Murdock.

“Frank,” she says quietly, turning unerringly to him.

He can’t say a damn thing. He can barely stay upright.

“Curt,” he manages. “You see her too?”

Curtis slowly moves toward them.

“Who do you think she is, Frank?” he says gently, the way you talk to wild dogs.

“It’s me,” she says.

Frank glances at Curtis in desperation, and Curtis nods.

“I can see her,” Curtis says.

She smiles, a little watery, and reaches out. Frank lets her hand land on his arm, and there’s weight to it, he can feel it through his jacket, and this isn’t possible.

“You’re dead,” he says.

She frowns a little.

“I think I might have been,” she says.

Frank barely hears Curtis quickly making his exit. Red’s touching him, and she’s back from the dead, and it’s a goddamn Christmas miracle.

Nothing makes sense. It doesn’t make any fucking sense.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks guys, for all your kind words! This one's been a little weirder and sloppier than usual, so I really appreciate all the support!


End file.
